I am Gnowee
by Victoria.Elwood
Summary: This story is about a young Indigenous girl who struggles to overcome the horrible racism that was used in the 1960s.


I AM GNOWEE

My name was Gnowee. Where I was from it meant the sun. I lived in the Boon Wurung area, as my people called it, and I had a family, a language and an identity. Life was happy then. The summers where the sun was hot and blinding. The peaceful stories, travelling through the seasons as the colours changed. We were undisturbed and managed to survive. Until the police came.

I still remember first seeing him at the top of the hill, red dust spiralling in clouds from underneath his feet. The moment that my mother stood up was when I knew- my family was going to be torn apart. I hadn't seen my father and brother for two days. We had had three warnings; any more disturbances from alcoholics and that would be it. The officer's pale face was beaded with sweat as sun glared into his squinting eyes. His face was red from heavy sunburn and a crusty name tag sat crookedly above his breast pocket reading John Dungley.

I looked up from my thoughts and realised that he had started talking to mum. I concentrated on what they were saying. "...has been charged with drunk and disorderly", read out the policeman as he inspected his faded blue notepad. "No! You cannot do this to us. You are destroying a family!" cried my mother, tears streaming hysterically down her dark, tanned face that marked us so much as to who we were. I huddled behind her, shivering, even though the sun was so hot it could cook one of the cheap eggs from the grey cartons in Coles. The sardonic man spoke again. "I expect you will be attending the trial. Without a lawyer I presume".

At that point in my life I had only just started grade one. My mother went to school up to year nine and my father, year six, while the rest if my extended family hadn't gone to school at all. They were thought as 'uneducated' and 'poor'. My attire consisted of dirty tie-dyed charity shirts and pants always a size too big. The indigenous Australians, including my family, were going through a terrible stage where the men had all constantly been getting into fights. None of our areas could afford proper lawyers and so fathers, brothers and husbands would be trialled unfairly and then arrested for years at a time. The worst cases of unjustness towards rad when the missionaries from the local church took away young children to teach them the 'proper' ways of doing things, by brainwashing them into forgetting their language and beliefs.

After the horrible man had left our area, my mother and I were forced to wait. Our options were to either to continue waiting for next three months until we could find a lawyer, while my brother and father were forced to wait in prison. The other option was to schedule the trial for the next week, with a higher risk of them being proven guilty. Even before my mother had told me what we were going to do, I knew in my heart the obvious answer. We would do the latter. It would be a risk, but it would have broken me in half if we had had to wait powerlessly for a lawyer who probably didn't even know what they were doing.

After waiting five more days, we took the tram. After we had boarded, my mother and I realised that there were no seats left for us. An old lady across from me kindly sat up and offered me her scratchy seat. Delighted at being able to rest my tired legs, I eagerly accepted. Not a moment after I had sat down though, people started booing at her. I was completely bewildered at what was happening but my mother looked terrified. She pulled me roughly up and apologised to the White lady. I was confused and angry at what was happening, but I didn't say anything. After a few minutes of leaning against the green and yellow wall, peeling at the paint with my hand, a man wearing a dark blue suit, came up to to mum. "Why are you on this tram." His cold eyes darted to me, and he spat on the ground. "This is for white people only. Not dirty blacks like you." Then he hit my mother. He hit her. It was as if she was an animal. Tears burned my eyes and stumbled messily down my face. "Get off!" The man was glaring hard at me now too. "Get off this train!" My mum pulled me to her and picked me up, the same as when I was two years old. We jumped off together, and when I looked up I could see that she was crying too.

After, we managed to make it to the courtroom and attend the trial. My family was proven guilty. My brother was assigned to two years in jail, and my dad, three. I would not see them again for a long time and it was because of their skin colour. Because they were black, they had an unfair trial, because they were black, they were already guilty the moment they stepped through the door of the courtroom.

My mother put me up for adoption that day. She said she loved me but she couldn't give me what I needed. I was adopted by a middle aged white woman with brown hair called Mary Rosefield. She gave me the name Elizabeth, and I was given a new life, a culture and a story.

Now, I am 50 years old. I have been changed and altered so that I am different or 'better'. But no matter what's has happened to me, I have always remembered my past and who I used to be. Because people have tried to transform me but they have never changed who I was.

I am Gnowee


End file.
